Numerous vehicles are known, which are operated recurrently on the same driving routes with defined and therefore repeatedly the same stopping points along the driving routes. Such vehicles include in particular buses for public transport, which repeatedly cover the same driving routes and always stop at the same points. Such vehicles also include in particular building machines, fork-lifts, trucks, taxis and trains.
Until now it has been left up to the skill of the driver to operate the vehicle in such manner that at the stopping points the vehicle is brought to rest in a defined manner. If a driver starts braking too soon, the journey time can be prolonged undesirably. On the other hand, if the driver brakes too late the vehicle has to be decelerated more sharply than desired, and this adversely affects comfort. A method is therefore needed for operating a vehicle, with the help of which method the vehicle can be brought to rest at stopping points in an optimum manner, and this indeed by making the best use of the vehicle's deceleration behavior at the stopping points concerned.
From WO 2011/002367 A1 a method for operating a vehicle is known, in which the vehicle is operated with active speed regulation in order to travel at a defined speed, wherein while driving uphill a first vehicle position is noted and during a subsequent downhill drive a speed is noted at a second position after the crest of the hill has been reached, and wherein depending on these a minimum speed at the crest is calculated, at which the vehicle should drive over the crest in order to reach the desired speed at the second position with minimum fuel consumption.